Many fans were deeply upset when ALIENS survivors Hicks and Newt were unceremoniously killed off in the opening moments of ALIEN 3. While concept art for the ALIEN sequel Neill Blomkamp recently set up at Fox suggests that the DISTRICT 9 filmmaker has found a way to bring Hicks back to the screen, Adam Sonnet is focusing on Newt for the fan film he's writing and directing, ALIEN IDENTITY.
Sonnet's film will be disregarding the events of ALIEN 3 and ALIEN RESURRECTION, explaining them away as cryo-sleep nightmares, and he has gotten a couple of ALIENS stars to validate his vision: Ricco Ross, who played Pvt. Robert Frost in James Cameron's 1986 film, has come on board ALIEN IDENTITY to both play Robert's brother Richard Frost and to produce the movie. In a major coup, Sonnet has also gotten Newt herself, Carrie Henn, to join the cast.
Henn was only ten years old when ALIENS came out, and playing Newt was her first and only experience acting in a film. Until now. Sonnet has cast her in the role of Newt's mother Anne Jorden, who will appear in a flashback.
Taking over for Henn as Newt is Elle Viane Sonnet, and the character is the lead in the story of ALIEN IDENTITY:
When given confidential information about her traumatizing youth, deep space colonist Rebecca "Newt" Jorden, must find the courage to face her new found identity.
I kind of have a love/hate outlook on fan films. On one hand, I don't really understand spending time and money on something you don't own and thus can't profit from, and I hate seeing the IMDb pages of character creators cluttered up with fan film credits. For example, the amount of them in the Writer section of John Carpenter's filmography is maddening to me. But at the same time, I do understand wanting to tell stories about characters you love, because I wrote many, many fan fiction screenplays in my youth.
ALIEN IDENTITY is certainly an interesting project, it's very cool that Carrie Henn has chosen to be involved, and her appearance alone is enough to make this one worth checking out when it's completed.
